


Asymmetry

by mothersbasement



Category: Euphoria (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dialogue Heavy, F/F, Horror/Thriller, Lexi and Rue are roommates, Murder Mystery, Not a Love Story, Remixed, Rue-centric, They're adults, They're also loners
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 06:54:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20403520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothersbasement/pseuds/mothersbasement
Summary: Rue and Lexi are content with their uneventful lives. They enjoy their routine of work, coming home, spending time with each other, and going to sleep. They have no plans of changing, but life brings them an unexpected surprise.A reworking of Dead Stripper Storage by Bryan Smith





	Asymmetry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have no idea if I'm going to continue this. I just wanted to try something new since I love thrillers and I love Euphoria. I also wanted to see a bond between Lexi and Rue that wasn't them falling for each other lol, so consider this akin to a test run or something. Let me know what you think!

Rue and Lexi can't understand what they're looking at. 

There's a dead woman who's sitting upright on their couch in their living room. Her head is tilted against the wall and her hands are placed politely in her lap. Her legs are crossed as if she were attending a business dinner. Her head is adorned with stringy red hair and since most of her body is exposed by her lacy black lingerie, Rue can see there are monochromatic tattoos sketched into her creamy skin. It's clear that she had been an attractive woman.

The body is clearly fresh. There's hardly a smell and the bloating process hasn't started yet. If it weren't for the crude marks around her neck, the girls would've thought a random woman decided to break into their house and fall asleep in an odd location and position.

Though she can't process her thoughts that are moving a mile per second, Rue is the first to speak. All she can mutter is, "Do you know her?"

Lexi is visibly distressed. Her mouth is agape and her face is devoid of the pale pink color it usually holds. "No, I don't fucking know her."

Rue definitely doesn't know her, either. Admittedly, her memory is comparable to that of a senior citizen, but she's sure that if she met someone who looked like the woman on the couch, they wouldn't leave her mind so easily. Out of all of the female encounters Rue has had, it's clear that this mysterious woman was in a league far above any of them. 

Another thing Rue knows for sure is that neither she or Lexi are responsible for the woman's death. The woman's throat is visibly crushed, showing that she was most likely strangled to death. Lexi's hands are too small and Rue's are too bony to do such a thing.

So the possibility of one of the girls murdering a stranger while sleepwalking is ruled out. Now the question that remains is...

"How did she get into our house?" Rue doesn't know why she thinks Lexi will have any answers, but that doesn't stop her from asking.

Lexi rakes her fingers through her loose curls. "I have no idea. I checked the alarm system and all of the locks and everything looks fine."

"How do you know someone didn't turn off the system before they came in?" Rue begins moving towards the kitchen to look at the said system for herself. Truthfully, she doesn't know what she's looking for. What does an alarm system even look like when a stranger turns it off and back on again?

"No one knows our passcode except Cassie and we both know she wouldn't do something like this."

Rue decides to check the activity of the alarm from the security app on her phone. Armed at 10PM last night, right before both girls went to bed. Status hasn't changed since then.

"Okay," Rue locks her phone and heads back to the living room. "Alarm has been locked since we set it, so if they didn't get in that way then we should probably check the locks again. There could be something we're just not seeing."

Lexi is still pale with fear, so she wastes no time with deciding she'll be the one to recheck all of the doors and windows. She hurries away from the body and out of the room. The sound of her footsteps quickly fades as she moves down the hallway.

Rue is uncomfortable. She knows no one is the room with her now, but she can't help but feel as if someone—possibly the person who choked the woman—has their eyes on her back. She frequently looks over her shoulder. She sees nothing besides the furniture that's supposed to be there, but she doesn't feel any safer.

With nothing else to do, Rue decides to inspect the corpse. She moves a few steps closer, almost close enough to reach out and touch her (and she kind of wants to in a slightly morbid way), and from her new angle the marks on the woman's crushed neck are even uglier. Black and blue, large handprints embedded in her skin. Leaning in even more, Rue sees thumb indentations on the underside of the ginger's chin. She smirks with satisfaction. This means the killer's DNA is surely on the body. This is good news! If she or Lexi were to call the police, they would immediately be under suspicion. Rue has watched enough true crime documentaries to know how easy it is to be convicted for a crime just from a single strand of hair left on a crime scene, so there is no doubt in her mind that these marks are enough to prove that she and Lexi are innocent.

Rue then starts to think about how she's leaning over this woman. She doesn't like how her hair is hanging dangerously close to the corpse's arm. She wonders if a strand of her own hair as already contaminated the woman. Did she just ruin her own innocence? The thought of being potentially guilty by default sends Rue flying back until she bumps into the coffee table. The table skids backwards and she lands on her ass. 

Lexi comes running back into the room. She sees Rue on the ground. "What just happened?"

Not wanting to admit what she was really doing, Rue answers with, "Nothing, I'm just a clumsy fuck. How are the locks?"

Lexi folds her arms with a heavy sigh. "Didn't go through all of them yet but like I said earlier, everything looks fine. You can't even open anything from the outside and nothing looks broken so I don't even see how-"

"The fuck is this doing here?" Rue is on her stomach now, and right where the coffee table would be if she hadn't pushed it lays a red backpack. She turns to Lexi. "Is this yours?"

Lexi looks frightened again. "No," she answers quietly. "I've never seen that before. You?"

"Nope." Rue reaches out to touch it, but Lexi's sudden yelp makes her retreat her arm back to her body. "Don't touch that! What if it belongs to the dead girl?"

This makes Rue get back on her feet. She presses her fingers on her temples. None of this is making sense.

"Rue, let's just call the police-"

"Are you kidding me?" Rue is pacing the room now, occasionally taking a peek at the woman's corpse each time she turns. "Do you know how suspicious all of this looks? How are we going to explain that the someone came in and put the dead body of someone we don't even know _and_ her bag right here in our house even though there's no sign of break in?"

Lexi points to the woman's neck. "Look at her neck. There have to be fingerprints there. Fingerprints that aren't ours. We're not guilty and they'll see that."

"What if our DNA is everywhere just from us being in this room?"

Lexi sighs and leans against the doorway. "You've been watching too many true crime shows, Rue."

"Maybe," Rue admits. "But I'm just trying to be safe here. I don't think we should call the police until we have an explanation that actually sounds believable."

"Okay, okay, fine." Lexi throws her hands up in defeat. "I won't call the police yet."

Silence then falls between the two of them. With nothing left to say, Lexi goes back to rechecking the locks, leaving Rue to stand alone in the middle of the living room again.

Rue is looking up at the ceiling in deep thought. She has no idea what to make of this situation. She almost wants to try to squeeze her eyes shut and will all of this away, but if there's anything she's learned from her youth, it's that fucked up situations like this never go away on their own. But she's also gotten out of all of those fucked up situations, so why is she afraid she won't get out of this one?

Okay, Rue. Think. What are some possible reasons why a nightmare like this could be taking place right now?

"Shit, Lex!" Rue's voice echoes through the house.

"What?" Lexi calls back. It sounds like she's upstairs. 

"Do you know anyone who might like...not like you?"

Rue hears Lexi scoff. "You know neither of us know anyone."

"I'm being serious, Howard." Rue's tone is stern, and she chewing at the fingernail of her thumb. "What about someone from your job? Is there anyone who might not like you?"

"Are you suggesting someone might have set this up to frame me or something?" Lexi's voice bounces around as she audibly moves from room to room. "Because I think that's a far-fetched idea."

"Just answer the question!"

"Okay, well." Lexi pauses, and her movements seemingly do, too. "There is, uh, Jules."

"WHAT?"

Lexi comes rushing back downstairs and into the living room. 

"Like, Jules from high school or?"

Lexi simply nods. She looks guilty and Rue doesn't know what's more surprising, the fact that Lexi never bothered to mention that works with Jules before now, or the fact that Jules settled for a 9-5 office job. Both are outlandish concepts.

Whatever, the mystery of this dead woman in their home is too important for Rue to start asking trivial questions. "How much does she not like you?"

Lexi leans against the wall. "It's nothing major," she explains. "She usually just gives me dirty looks and flicks my head whenever she passes my desk."

"Okay, what?" Rue struggles to hold back a laugh. "She _flicks _your head?"

Lexi nods. Her grave expression says she's not fucking around. Rue no longer wants to laugh anymore once she sees this. 

"But let's say even if Jules was trying to frame me...or us," Lexi speaks. "How would she even know where we live?"

Shit.

Rue shrugs. She continues to mull over the thought before finally admitting that she doesn't really know. "Let's just keep the fact that she doesn't like you in mind. Has anything big happened at work recently?"

"She got fired on Friday. I wasn't the cause for her getting fired, though. I don't even know what she got fired for. And on the off chance that she did want to retaliate against me for getting fired, how could she have planned this out in only two days? It's Sunday, you know."

So there's a corpse of an unknown (seemingly beautiful) woman sitting on their living room couch. There's no signs of a break in and no clues have been left besides the body and her bag. She was clearly strangled to death by someone with very large hands, presumably a male, and neither Rue or Lexi are men. Both girls were sleeping when the murderer must have dumped the body at their place. The only logical theory is this crime must have been staged by a co-worker, Jules, who dislikes Lexi and just so happens to be Rue's ex. Jules getting fired could have been the catalyst for this horrific event. However, Jules was fired on Friday and this is taking place on a Sunday, so either Jules is a very fast planner when it comes to extreme things like this, or Jules has nothing to do with this.

Sometimes Rue wishes Lexi wasn't so logical. With all of this knowledge, all she can say is, "Well, fuck!"

"I'm telling you, Rue, I don't think we're going to figure out who did this unless we call the cops and have them inspect-"

"We are not calling the cops."

"Then what the fuck are we gonna do? Let the body just sit here and rot in our house?"

Rue can't think of an answer. Clearly she doesn't want to keep the body here, but she doesn't want authorities to get involved either. Both luckily and unluckily, Rue doesn't have to answer because there's suddenly knocking coming from the back door.


End file.
